DXersaid

“CIA representations also omitted key contextual facts, including that: (1) the Intelligence Community was interested in the Florida-based Adnan el-Shukrijumah prior to the detention of the CIA’s first detainee;2016”

“Adnan Shukrijumah, for example, could be a future facilitator of te”rrorist attacks for al Qaeda. He speaks English well. He lived in the United States for years and has tried to get back into the United States using various passports.”

FBI Director Mueller:

“Adnan Shukrijumah, as has been mentioned by the attorney general, is a trained operative who poses an operational threat to the United States.”

“In an intelligence borne operation, top al-Qaeda leader Adnan el Shukrijumah was killed by (the) Pakistan Army in an early morning raid in Shinwarsak, South Waziristan today,” the military statement said. The remote region borders Afghanistan.

“His accomplice and local facilitator were also killed in the raid,” the statement said.

In Wana, the capital of South Waziristan, all phone lines and mobile phone signals were shut down overnight and the roads were blocked, a Reuters reporter there said.

Residents awoke just before dawn to the thudding of helicopter gunships and the growl of convoys of military vehicles approaching from several directions.

They were heading to a small house on a main road less than five kilometers from the main market on the outskirts of town, a witness said. Residents say the neighborhood is known to be sympathetic to the Taliban and the house had been used to shelter Afghan Taliban fighters for years.

One military official said security forces first heard that Chinese hostages were held at that location and then learned about Shukrijumah’s presence and planned a large operation, the officer said.

Two intelligence officers said the militants opened fire on the Pakistani military and Shukrijumah, who one described as “an Arab national,” was killed in the ensuing gun battle. One soldier was killed and another wounded, the military said.

A military official said five other militants were taken into custody during the raid, but intelligence officials said they were Shukrijumah’s wife and four children.

Shukrijumah is wanted in the United States for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and to commit murder in a foreign country.

DXersaid

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke on Tuesday delayed Padilla’s sentencing from Aug. 4 until Sept. 9. Federal prosecutors and Padilla’s defense lawyer sought more time to go through classified evidence Padilla wants to use at a sentencing hearing.

An appeals court ruled that Padilla’s original prison sentence of more than 17 years was too lenient.

One FBI report, dated April 3, 2002, recounts a chilling discovery made by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office on Halloween 2001.

Deputies were called after a man with a Tunisian passport was observed disposing of items in a dumpster behind a storage facility he’d rented in Bradenton.

The man’s name is blanked out, but the report says authorities who searched the dumpster found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad, a map of the inside of an unnamed airport, a rudimentary last will and testament, a weight to fuel ratio calculation for a Cessna 172 aircraft, flight training information from the Flight Training Center in Venice and printed maps of Publix shopping centers in Tampa Bay.”

The Flight Training Center is where 9/11 hijack pilot Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Flight 93 when it crashed in Shanksville, Penn., took flying lessons.

The three paragraphs that follow are completely blanked out. The reasons cited include information “specifically authorized under criteria established by (presidential) executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy.”

The documents were located via court-ordered text searches using the names of the al-Hijjis and Ghazzawi. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch is currently reviewing more than 80,000 pages of 9/11 records.

“This release suggests that the FBI has covered up information that is vitally important to public safety,” said Miami attorney Thomas Julin, who represents BrowardBulldog.org. “It’s startling that after initially denying they had any documents they continue to find new documents as the weeks and months roll by. Each new batch suggests there are many, many more documents.”

On that day, FBI offices in Tampa and Charlotte received information from Washington stamped “secret” stating that a “person of interest” in the FBI’s massive 9/11 investigation had returned to the United States.

The person, whose name is redacted, was reported to be “traveling to Texas and LA for business/tourism.” The person apparently told authorities upon entering the country that he could be reached in Charlotte, N.C. He provided a phone number “associated with furniture manufacturers in North Carolina,” the report says.

Details about that were blanked out. But the report also says, “Tampa is notified that a person of interest to Tampa regarding the PENTTBOMB investigation has a valid visa for re-entry into the U.S.” PENTTBOMB is the FBI’s code name for its 9/11 investigation.

***

In all, the FBI released 11 pages Monday. They contain statements reiterating that the al-Hijjis had departed the U.S. in haste shortly before 9/11 and that “further investigation” had “revealed many connections” between them and persons associated with “attacks on 9/11/2001.”

Those statements flatly contradict the FBI’s public statements that agents found no connection between the al-Hijjis and the 9/11 plot.

Yet they dovetail with the account of a counterintelligence source who has said investigators in 2001 found evidence — phone records and photographs of license plates snapped at the entrance to the al-Hijji’s Sarasota area neighborhood — that showed Mohamed Atta, other hijackers and former Broward resident and current al Qaeda fugitive Adnan Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji home.

None of that information, or even the fact that an investigation in Sarasota took place, was disclosed by the FBI to Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the attacks or the 9/11 Commission, according to former Florida Sen. Bob Graham. Graham co-chaired the joint inquiry.

DXersaid

I hope the judge makes documents relating to Adnan El-Shukrijumah available in a searchable format. The many dozens of “batches” of Dr. Ivins’ email are not searchable by a single global command — only batch by batch. The people in my hacks and hackers group would find it very easy to combine the files into a searchable database — but it is beyond my ken.

BY DAN CHRISTENSEN AND ANTHONY SUMMERS
BROWARDBULLDOG.ORG
The Justice Department Friday made public four new, heavily censored documents confirming that by 2002 the FBI had found “many connections” between 9/11 terrorist figures and the Florida family of “an allegedly wealthy international businessman” with ties to the Saudi Royal family.

***

The release of Ghazzawi’s name is the first time the government has confirmed Ghazzawi’s involvement in the FBI investigation that lasted until at least 2004, yet was never disclosed to the 9/11 Commission or congressional investigators.

Ghazzawi, advisor to a senior Saudi prince, owned the upscale south Sarasota home where his daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulaziz al-Hijji lived prior to 9/11. Law enforcement sources have said that after 9/11 investigators found evidence — telephone records and photographs of license tags and security gate log books — showing that hijack pilot Mohamed Atta, former Broward resident and fugitive al Qaeda leader Adnan Shukrijumah and other terror suspects had visited the home. The home is about 10 miles from the Venice airport, where Atta and the two other hijack pilots trained.

***

The four pages released Friday were all declassified shortly before their release.

FBI records chief David M. Hardy said in a declaration under oath that the bureau has processed the Tampa field office’s complete “sub file” on 9/11 and is in the process of turning it over to the judge as ordered. Hardy said the file consists of 80,266 pages, divided into 411 “individual documents sections,” burned onto three CDs in a searchable format.

The documents, and parallel hard copies, were provided for Judge Zloch’s private inspection. He will then decide whether any of those documents are releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.

DXersaid

More secret 9/11 documents identified, but FBI has yet to turn them over to judge

BY DAN CHRISTENSEN AND ANTHONY SUMMERS

…an attorney for the Justice Department said Wednesday that the FBI has identified four more boxes of “classified” 9/11 documents held by its Tampa field office.

The government, however, has yet to comply with a federal judge’s orders Friday that it turn over copies of that massive 9/11 file — now said to total 27 boxes — for his personal inspection.

U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch issued those orders in a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by BrowardBulldog.org seeking records about the FBI’s investigation into apparent pre-9/11 terrorist activity in Sarasota.

In an email to the news organization’s attorney, Thomas Julin, Miami Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee said the government was prepared to file the documents with the court last Friday “as ordered.” The Justice Department, however, determined that Zloch’s chambers do not have a safe with “storage capability for classified documents.”

“The plan at present is to deliver the safe [which can hold four boxes] on Thursday, May 1, 2014, along with the first four boxes of classified materials,” Lee said. “When the court has completed its review of the four boxes, chambers will be contacted and I will deliver four more boxes, as well as retrieving the material already reviewed.”

Lee said, too, that he will deliver to the court on Friday CD ROMs containing scanned versions of the classified documents.

POSSIBLE DELAYS

The government’s piecemeal document delivery plan deviates substantially from Zloch’s orders, which require the production of photocopies of the FBI’s entire 9/11Tampa file all at once. If approved, it would delay the production of records to the judge for inspection by weeks or months.

The existence of four additional boxes of 9/11 records could add to any delay.

***

Sources have said agents later found gatehouse logs and photographs of license tags and phone records showing that Atta, Shukrijumah and others had visited the al-Hijji’s home.

Al-Hijji, who later worked for the European subsidiary of the state oil company Saudi Aramco, told London’s Daily Telegraph last year that he condemned the terror attacks and had no involvement in them. The FBI has said publicly that its Sarasota investigation found no evidence connecting the family to either the hijackers or the 9/11 plot.

The FBI, however, kept the investigation secret until BrowardBulldog.org first disclosed it in September 2011.

Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, has said that the FBI did not disclose the existence of the Sarasota investigation to either the Joint Inquiry or the subsequent 9/11 Commission.

The FOIA lawsuit was filed in September 2012 after the FBI denied administrative requests for the release of its records about the matter. In March 2013, the government unexpectedly released more than two-dozen heavily censored records that nevertheless undercut the bureau’s previous public denials.

Adnan el Shukrijumah is a suspected operative of the al Qaida terror network and is wanted as a material witness by law enforcement authorities in the United States in connection for a possible attack on the U.S. or U.S. interests abroad.

Adnan el Shukrijumah

***

El Shukrijumah was last seen in early 2003 in the Miami or southern Florida area where he was receiving flight training similar to that taken by some of the men involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks. He has not been seen since, though some reports put him in Morocco.

The Rewards for Justice program is offering a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to el Shukrijumah’s arrest or prosecution.

Adnan el Shukrijumah

The U.S. guarantees that all reports will be investigated and the identity of all informants will be kept confidential. If appropriate, the U.S. is prepared to protect informants by relocating them.

Adnan El-Shukrijumah is an uncle. Are his nieces and nephews proud? Under the hadiths — under his belief system — those doing harm to children, women and elderly with a biological weapon will suffer eternal damnation.

As the son of an imam, he should have known that. Dr. Ayman is a bitter man, his morals twisted with anger and hate. His lifelong associates could have explained he was never much of a scholar when it came to interpreting the koran and hadiths. Moral questions aren’t the sort of thing you put to committee vote as Zawahiri did in his letter to shura members prior to the anthrax mailings.

DXersaid

My daughter recently said that I had brought her up on Subway sandwiches — and so this famous El-Shukrijumah “sighting” at a Tampa subway shop was always dear to my heart. Nothing like a $5 million reward to spur an appetite.

TAMPA — News of the possible sighting of an al-Qaida terrorist last month at a Subway restaurant in Tampa spread quickly across the country.

USA Today wrote about it. So did the New York Times. Dateline NBC aired an entire segment on the terrorist, Adnan El Shukrijumah, and showed aerial footage of the sandwich shop.

Almost two weeks later, Tampa police have solved the case.

The man who walked into the restaurant March 25 and bought a sandwich is not a terrorist. He is “an innocent citizen” of Indian descent, said police spokeswoman Katie Hughes.

“He bore a strong resemblance to the photo” of El Shukrijumah, Hughes said.

A customer at the Subway at S Dale Mabry Highway and W Sevilla Street told police he saw a man who resembled the photograph of El Shukrijumah, which he had seen on television.

The tipster followed the man out of the store and watched him get into a red Grand Am. The customer said the man appeared to walk faster when he realized he was being followed.

Several minutes later, a Tampa police captain walked into the Subway for dinner. The customer told the officer what he had just seen.

The captain happened to have a wanted poster of El Shukrijumah, and the customer said he thought that was the man who had been in the store. The captain also showed the poster to the clerk, who agreed it looked like the man who was in his store.

Once the story got out, police received dozens of tips. They were especially concerned because the man was seen the night before President Bush’s visit to MacDill Air Force Base, and the Subway is near the base.

One tip eventually led to the man in the red Grand Am.

Police aren’t releasing the man’s name because he did not commit a crime, nor is he a suspect in any case.

Hughes said the man was “very forthcoming,” though a bit nervous when officers showed up on his doorstep.

“Any normal person would be a little nervous if they were confused with an al-Qaida terrorist,” she said.

El Shukrijumah has ties to Florida. He lived for six years with his family in Miramar in South Florida.

Federal officials think El Shukrijumah is an al-Qaida member trained to carry out deadly attacks. His name surfaced after the March 1 capture of senior al-Qaida organizer Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

DXersaid

There appears to have been no “there there” in the famous reported sighting in Colorado at a Denny’s.

Heck, I saw a reward in the news this month for a family annihilator while I was watching a DVD — and the fellow looked identical (to me) to the actor on the screen I was looking at. The entire purpose of a reward is to motivate reports — in a country of 350 million or so, one may someday prove out. It is especially fun to see the photos of local bank robbers to see if it is your niece’s new boyfriend.

But documentary evidence is far more reliable — especially if it is creates an alibi and can be corroborated such as Dr. Ivins’ attendance at his group therapy session on 9/17. That was worthy of an “oops” that should have thrown an Ivins Theory of the tracks right away.

Men residents thought resembled al-Qaida terror suspects have twice been reported to Avon police in the last few days. Avon Police and an FBI agent determined one man was not one of the seven al-Qaida suspects federal officials are searching for. A second sighting, reported to police 24 hours later, could not be confirmed. Photographs of seven suspected terrorists, along with warnings of possible attacks from the federal government, have been widely published in newspapers this week.A man identified as Samuel Mac, who called himself a manager at Denny’s in Avon, recently complained to the Denver Post that FBI agents seemed uninterested when he reported seeing two men who resembled the pictures of al-Qaida suspects.Avon Police weren’t notified of the sighting, which allegedly occurred Wednesday, until 6:30 p.m. Thursday, said Det. Mike Leake. A person relayed a story he or she heard from servers that actually waited on the two men for dinner Wednesday evening. Police interviewed the two servers, who said the men told them they were from Iran and were driving to the West Coast, Leake said. One of the servers pointed Leake to two pictures that were published on the front of the Denver Rocky Mountain News Wednesday. The man interviewed by the Denver Post said the two men resembled suspects Adnan G. El Shukrijumah and Abderraouf Jdey.But Mac hasn’t worked for Denny’s for some time, restaurant officials said.”He did not work for us at the time this was being reported,” said Richard Wozniak, vice president of operations for Denny’s. “If he was in our restaurant, he was calling as an individual.”Wozniak said the Denny’s in Avon does have records of someone named Sam working there, but no one with the last name of Mac. An employee reached at the Avon Denny’s said only that the man no longer worked there. She declined to comment further or give her name.Leake said only the servers were interviewed by Avon police and the man interviewed by the Denver Post is an ex-manager who is friends with the two servers. But by the time Avon Police found out, there wasn’t much they could do. “The guys seen here are long gone,” Avon Police Chief Jeff Layman said. “We don’t even know who they were. Had they called the local police right away, we might have been able to track them down.”On the flip side, Avon Police were called to the Avon Post Office Thursday when a postal worker identified a customer as one of the suspects. Police arrived just as the man was leaving, but were able to provide other patrol officers a description of the man as well as a the truck he was driving. The man was stopped at the entrance of Beaver Creek while an FBI agent from the Glenwood Springs office arrived to check him out. The man was later released when the FBI agent determined he was not one of the al-Qaida suspects, Leake said.Citizens who believe they’ve spotted someone who resembles an al-Qaida suspect should contact their local police department first – not the FBI office in Washington, D.C., local police say.”If you feel like you are seeing someone like that, by all means call us,” Layman said. “But call your local law enforcement agency rather than trying to get a hold of the FBI.”The closest FBI office is in Glenwood Springs.Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, local police have responded to three suspected anthrax reports, that turned out to be unfounded. This the first time Avon Police have received a report of a suspected terrorist in the area.Attempts to locate Mac for comment were unsuccessful. The Sheriff’s Office has not received reports of terrorist suspect sightings.

DXersaid

With Trinidad’s known connection to Adnan El-Shukrijumah and his time there — and its warm clime — the island’s secret lab would be a fun one to have found.

Terror Threat against U.S. and UK business interests in Trinidad no hoax
TrinidadExpress ^ | 07/28/03 | Darryl Heeralal
Posted on July 28, 2003 1:25:13 AM EDT by Pikamax

‘Terror threat’ story no hoax, says cop

By Darryl Heeralal

AFTER six months of investigations, police say they have found no evidence to suggest that the terror threat story reported by the Sunday Express in January was a hoax or was planted by this newspaper, as suggested by the Minister of National Security Howard Chin Lee.

This according to Supt Errol Denoon of the Port of Spain CID, who was appointed by then-commissioner Hilton Guy to investigate claims by an Islamic group that they intended to attack US and British interests in Trinidad and Tobago with chemical and biological weapons.

In response to a question, Denoon said there is no evidence to say the story was a hoax or it was planted .

The Police Special Branch was also appointed to probe the matter, but this newspaper understands that part of the enquiry was to investigate the Sunday Express team that reported the story.

The Special Branch investigation, according to reports, has been on hold for a couple of months.

In a nation-wide address on January 28, two days after the story was published, Chin Lee claimed the story was totally incorrect , that it could be refuted, and the truth can be told about them .

Since that address Chin Lee has not brought forward any evidence to prove the story to be wrong.

In a post-Cabinet news conference two days after Chin Lee’s address, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the Government has committed significant resources into the investigation of the matter .

Denoon said they were still putting together information and that the investigation was not completed.

He said they were investigating every piece of information and admitted that police have not been able to find the lab where the Sunday Express team was taken.

Denoon could not set a time frame for the completion of the investigation.

The Sunday Express team was taken to a secret location, described as a lab, by the group and shown several organic and inorganic chemical compounds which it claimed were being used to make chemical and biological weapons to use against US and British interests , if provoked.

In early February, Special Branch officers interviewed chemist Veji Boodoo, who told them his laboratory at Cuchawan Trace, Debe, could be the same lab that the Sunday Express had visited.

Boodoo, the director of a company called Petro Lab Ltd, in a recorded statement to police, said almost two and a half years ago he was approached by an Islamic group who asked for information on how to combine certain compounds to make chemical and biological weapons and explosives.

Boodoo told police the group approached him several times after the first meeting asking for his help and expertise.

He told police he did not co-operate.

Boodoo is a chemist and said he had received training from US and British experts who came to Trinidad and conducted seminars and workshops.

Boodoo told police at least six of his employees had keys to his Debe lab, and that anyone one of them could have given access for its use to the Muslim group.

He told police that two weeks before the terror threat story was published, the group, with whom he had spoken several times before, approached him again, this time enquiring about how certain chemicals could be used to make deadly weapons.

Investigators were told that the chemicals the group had asked Boodoo about were similar to those shown to the Sunday Express.

The Express also understands that another Islamic group approached Boodoo following the conviction of Dole Chadee for help with plans to take out a former State official.

That plan never materialised.

A man who was in the lab and dressed in surgical gloves and a gas mask made it clear that the compounds shown were not explosive or toxic in nature by themselves, but that they were being combined with other chemicals to make them deadly and dangerous.

The man said he was a chemical engineer who was trained in the US in explosives.

The group said they made part of their plans public because, according to them, it would be unIslamic to attack without warning .

The trip to the lab was part of a continuing investigation by the Sunday Express, which started last November into reports by US and British intelligence agencies that a radical Mulsim group was planning to launch an attack on foreign interests in this country.

The FBI compiled a dossier on a man identified as Umar Abdullah, head of Waajihatul Islaamiyyah (The Islamic Front) and intercepted a cellular phone call in area 36, Cunupia, in which a man spoke of plans to attack US businesses.

The British High Commission, according to an intelligence report, had received a telephone call informing of plans to attack British interests.

Several chemical compounds resembling the compounds in the lab were found strewn outside Boodoo’s lab days after the terror threat story was published.

Forensic officers took samples of the material and later reported thay were not dangerous.

However, the forensic officers admitted to police that the materials found could be combined with other compounds to make them dangerous and that explosives could be made with chemicals bought from a supermarket or pharmacy.

DXersaid

While Shukrijumah may have friends in Trinidad who like mixing chemicals, he has relatives in Guyana.

EL SHUKRIJUMAH IS IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO; STAYS WITH ZAINOOL ALI; ALI SAYS SHUKRIJUMAH WAS HEADED FOR GUYANA) The Saudi native [adnan el shukrijumah] visited Trinidad for six days in May 2001 and stayed with Zainool Ali, who lives in Chaguanas. … El Shukrijumah went to Guyana to visit relatives when he left Trinidad, Ali said. – “Terror suspect has close links to Caribbean; FBI keeps tabs on Trini friends ,” Trinidad Guardian, 05/28/04

DXersaid

Adnan El-Shukrijumah’s relatives confirmed that he was in Guyana as recently as January 2004. (This was after the first $5 million BOLO in spring 2003.) The confirmation by relatives seems to corroborate the report by George Bacchus of sightings at a money exchange in Georgetown. He said he appeared friendly with the owner. The owner of the exchange said that while his father had been friends with Adnan’s father, he had not seen Adnan. However, the confirmation by Adnan’s relatives seems to provide corroboration of the report by Mr. Bacchus.

MAY 2004 a Thursday : (GUYANA : EL SHUKRIJUMAH’S RELATIVES TELL THE MIAMI HERALD THAT HE WAS THERE IN JANUARY 2004 BUT THEY DON’T KNOW WHERE HE WENT) Relatives living in a Georgetown suburb said Shukrijumah had been in the country as recently as January [2004] , but said they had no idea where he went. ”We don’t want to talk about this,” one of two female relatives said Thursday outside the family home. “We have had enough and are tired.” The two women would not give their names. In the past, relatives acknowledged Shukrijumah had stayed in Guyana, where his father was a prayer leader at the Peters Hall mosque. The father later traveled to Saudi Arabia to study theology. The elder Shukrijumah was in that country when Adnan was born, relatives said.– “MIRAMAR : Terror suspect was sighted,” BY BERT WILKINSON AND KARL ROSS, The Miami Herald, Posted on Fri, May. 28, 2004,

DXersaid

At one point post-911, Adnan El-Shukrijumah took a BWIA flight from Trinidad to London.

MAY 27, 2004 Thursday : (CONFIRMED REPORT : FBI SENT AGENTS TO QUESTION FOUR TRINIDADIANS ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS OF ADNAN EL SHUKRIJUMAH; EL SHUKRIJUMAH HAD BEEN TO TRINIDAD AND HED LEFT ON A BWIA FLIGHT TO LONDON, UK) Police confirmed yesterday [May 27, 2004] that four members of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) visited Trinidad last year [2003] to question four nationals about the whereabouts of Saudi Arabian-born, Adnan G El Shukrijumah. Police said the FBI agents arrived with the names and addresses of the four Trinidadians, asking for assistance in locating them as part of US authorities’ search for El Shukrijumah. An elite section of the Police Service took the FBI agents around during their investigations. AP reporter Michael Smith yesterday identified the four as Zainool Ali, Munaf Mohammed, Imtiaz Mohammed and Nizam Ali. However, police said the FBI agents were unable to gather useful information from the four on the whereabouts of El Shukrijumah, whose father once lived here and taught at an Islamic school.

However, police said they were able to tell the FBI agents that El Shukrijumah visited Trinidad sometime ago and left for London via a BWIA flight. Law enforcers here said the Saudi national was in possession of several passports including a T&T one. They could not say how he obtained the T&T document. “We don’t know where he got it from,” a senior officer said. — “Agents drew blanks in T&T — cops,” AP via http://www.guardian.co.tt/news1.html 05/27/04, 31770 bytes

DXersaid

And this report has Adnan El-Shukrijumah having been in Panama in April 2001 for 10 days before visiting Trinidad and Tobago for six days in May 2001.

MAY 28, 2004 : (PANAMANIAN OFFICIAL SAYS EL SHUKRIJUMAH HAD BEEN IN PANAMA FIVE MONTHS BEFORE 9/11 2001 ATTACKS) “…Even Panama, a country known more for its canal than terrorism, has been included in the search. Officials said Wednesday they are trying to track down a man identified as Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah, of Saudi Arabia. Panamanian Security Council Chief Ramiro Jarvis said El Shukrijumah arrived in Panama legally from the United States in April 2001 — five months before the Sept. 11 terror attacks — and stayed in Panama for 10 days. He also visited Trinidad and Tobago for six days the next month. “We don’t know exactly what he did during his stay and it is important to find out,” Jarvis said. …” — CBS, May 28, 2004,” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/07/terror/main621523.shtml

JUNE 30, 2004 Wednesday : (HONDURAN OFFICIALS REPORT THAT EL SHUKRIJUMAH aka JAFAR AL-TAYAR, PLANNED TO ATTACK A TOARGET OR TARGETS ALONG THE PANAMA CANAL) A man believed to be a member of al-Qaeda plotted to blow up the Panama Canal, a spokesman for the Honduran security ministry told the AFP Wednesday. Leonel Sauceda confirmed Security Minister Oscar Alvarez’s comments to local media that the 38-year-old suspect — identified as Adnan Guishar El Shukrijumah, or Jafar al-Tayar, who was in Honduras late last month — “planned to plant explosives in the Panama Canal to hamper boat traffic in the area.” Alvarez’s remarks were published in the daily La Tribuna on Wednesday, along with four photos of the suspect. International intelligence officials have offered a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture.
Alvarez did not say when Shukrijumah entered or left the country, nor through which country he had traveled. But Sauceda said he was in Honduras on May 27. …Developing…– “Suspected al-Qaeda member planned to blow up Panama Canal: Honduras,” AFP via DrudgeReport, Wed Jun 30 2004 14:53:29 ET

DXersaid

After 10 days in Panama in April 2001 and 6 days in Trinidad in May 2001, one author picks up the chronology:

“Returning to the US, Adnan visited New York (including the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn), Washington, DC and the infamous Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia), Chicago, and Canada, where he made contact with Abderraouf Jdey, the head of a large al Qaeda cell in Montreal, and Abdelazziz Boussora, another member of the Montreal cell and a trained pilot. The purpose of the meetings with Jdey and Boussora was to arrange a second wave of attacks on US soil.

In June [2001], he traveled to a Pakistan for advanced training in explosives under Muhammed Atef, the co-founder of al-Qaeda who was killed in Afghanistan during the first wave of Operation Enduring Freedom. At the training camp on the outskirts of Kandahar, Adnan met Jose Padilla, his friend from Florida. But the two quickly got on each other’s nerves, and Padilla was forced to admit that he couldn’t work with Adnan on a mission. [18]

“Atef then sent Padilla to a training site near the Kandahar airport, where Padilla would train under the watchful eye of an al Qaeda explosives expert [El-Shukrijumah] and be trained with the man who was to be his partner in this mission to destroy apartment buildings, another al Qaeda operative. When Padilla saw this other operative, he recognized him immediately because he had known him from Florida.

Padilla and the other operative trained under the guidance of this explosives expert and learned about switches and circuits and timers. They learned how to seal an apartment to trap the natural gas and to prepare an explosion using that gas that would have maximum yield and destroy an apartment building.

I told you that Padilla recognized this other al Qaeda operative who was to be his partner, recognized him immediately. You will, too. Because that other operative was Adnan Shukrijumah, also known as Jafar or Jafar the pilot, a man that the attorney general and the FBI director told this country about last week; one of the seven we want so badly to find.

Padilla and Jafar, though, could not get along. That personality conflict led them to abandon this operation, although only temporarily, after Padilla reported to Atef that he didn’t think he could work with Jafar and he couldn’t work this operation alone.”

And so according to this tall authoritative-sounding fellow who is now the FBI Director, El-Shukrijumah was in Afghanistan in June 2001 in Kandahar.

That was when my former Facebook Friend Yazid Sufaat had assembled additional laboratory equipment at Kandahar — with Yazid Sufaat and his vaccinated assistants no longer having to work in the makeshift laboratory they had started at Omar Hospital.

By 2005 or so, I believe my DIA/CIA contact raised the issue of Adnan El-Shukrijumah meeting with Yazid Sufaat in Kandahar in June 2001. (After 50, a person’s memory is the first to go; Thurman Arnold used to say “Some of the things I remember most vividly never really happened.” The CIA’s CTC will know, however, about interactions between Sufaat and Shukrijumah and would know whether there is authoritative sourcing that is public).

I don’t recall whether I asked Yazid Sufaat about such a meeting or not. He often is so busy being friendly and likable that he fails to convey substantive responses to questions. He has a deep need to be liked because he knows what he has done was very wrong and he thus is fearful of being shunned. At least that is what he forthrightly described as his frame of mind when he was released in December 2008.

If he doesn’t want to be shunned, he should be a truth-teller.

Does anyone know if Adnan is on Facebook or Twitter? He might be one to ask unless Mr. Sufaat is opening up to authorities. In light of the recent arrests, my guess is that Mr. Sufaat has decided to cooperate about his former colleagues.

DXersaid

Adnan El-Shukrijumah was closely connected with Al Qaeda/ 911 operatives Al-Hawsawi and KSM, both of whom are associated with Al Qaeda’s anthrax planning through the documentary evidence. El-Shukrijumah was also closely connected to Mohammed Atta. There is a $5 million reward for Adnan’s capture. In 2010, he was indicted in connection with a NYC subway plot.

By way of background, Hambali introduced Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat to Zawahiri at Al Qaeda’s Media House. Yazid in Facebook email and chat does not deny to me Al Qaeda’s responsibility for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. Instead, he pleads the Fifth Amendment. Nor does he deny that he was working with virulent Ames. Yazid had assured KSM that he and his assistants were safe because they had been vaccinated. After our exchanges, Yazid was arrested for terrorism in connection with his conversations with some young men leaving for Syria.

Al-Hawsawi had worked there at the Media House before working to help the 911 hijackers into the US — he was KSM’s assistant. Al-Hawsawi’s laptop had the anthrax spraydrying documents on it. The night Atta was copying and cutting at KINKOS and Maryland (see film that has not been disclosed by the FBI), Atta returned unused funds to Al-Hawsawi. (see record of wire transfer)

According to Al-Hawsawi, American Adnan El-Shukrijumah aka “Jafar The Pilot” lived with Al-Hawsawi in safe houses in Karachi from February 2002- April 2002. See detention report that is uploaded.

The anthrax letters are in a handwriting consistent with Atta’s handwriting — at least that is what the FBI handwriting opinion still being withheld concluded. I have uploaded the exemplar and handwriting comparison.

Atta prayed at the mosque where El-Shukrijumah, which was next to his house and where his father Gulshair led prayers. Gulshair had been at the Brooklyln mosque where he translated for Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman. El-Shukrijumah used to raise funds for Global Relief Foundation which was involved in Al Qaeda’s WMD aspirations. An FBI undercover informant says he was told to stay away from El-Shurkijumah in 2001 because it was thought that El-Shukrijumah was suspicious of him — and instead the informant, interviewed in 2009 by ABCNews — was directed to concentrate on the 19-year-old who seemed like an easier target. That young man then too grew suspicious and said he wanted to withdraw from the suggested plan to target electrical substations. The prosecutors initially declined to prosecute because he had been entrapped by an earlier freelance undercover. But then the prosecution proceeded in May 2002. That young man says he saw El-Shukrijumah, who attended the same mosque, as late as July 2001.

KSM says he directed El-Shukrijumah to case targets in NYC, Washington, DC. and throughout the US in 2001.

In the Spring of 2002, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, was living with Al-Hawsawi in Karachi. Al-Hawsawi had the anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop. The process would take 30 days. Al-Hawsawi was captured in the home of bacteriologist Qadus Khan.

Intelligence analysis often involves tracing back through time who knew who.

DXersaid

Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the son of the blind sheik’s translator. The Al Hayat letter bombs were the model for the Fall 2001 anthrax letters. Al Hayat letter bombs for which there is up to a $5 million reward under the rewards for justice program.

The same sort of counterintuitive theory (a bioevangelist theory) — with or without being dressed up by panties — was raised in connection with the earlier letter bombing of newspapers to DC and New York City and people in symbolic positions. But that time it was US Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar who noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, 1996 one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. The blind sheik’s paralegal questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. This time, Mr. Sattar did not need any help making the argument with respect to the anthrax letters — numerous people with agendas rushed to do it for him. One internet poster focused on young children because of the block lettering used in the letters. Some focused on a secret, illegal US program because the strain used was also used in vaccine research in the US. Some focused on Bruce Ivins, thinking him a murderous fiend, because they took their instructions from an alien at night. The alien controlled her, she writes, through a microchip implanted in her butt. (See the 2009 book by Dr. Ivins’ first counselor, who was heavily relied upon by proponents of the Ivins Theory.)

NPR set the stage for the Al Hayet letters. It was January 2, 1997, at 9:15 a.m. at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. The employee of the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat began to open a letter. It was a Christmas card — the kind that plays a musical tune. It was white envelope, five and a half inches by six and a half inches, with a computer-generated address label attached. It had foreign postage and a post mark — a post mark in Alexandria, Egypt. (Egyptian security would later deny the post mark is genuine). It looked suspiciously bulky, so he set it down and called the police. Minutes later they found a similar envelope. These were the first two of four letter bombs that would arrive at Al Hayat during the day.” A fifth letter bomb addressed to the paper was intercepted at a nearby post office. They all looked the same. Two similar letter bombs addressed to the “parole officer” (a position that does not exist) arrived at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth.

Egyptian Saif Adel (Makawwi) was involved in military planning. Adel was a colonel in the Egyptian Army’s Special Forces before joining Al Qaeda. He helped plan the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Africa. He was also a planner in the attack on the USS Cole and has served as the liaison officer between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Adel assisted Atef, who had overall responsibility for Al Qaeda’s operations. There was part of a long-running disagreement with Saif Adel (Makawwi) and Ayman, however. As Attorney Al-Zayyat has said, Makkawi had many times claimed responsibility for operations that were carried out inside Egypt but when the perpetrators were arrested, it would be al-Zawahiri’s name whose name they shout loyalty to from the docks. Some would even say they did not know a person named Makkawi. After the letter al-Hayat letter bombs were sent in January 1997, Saif Adel (Makawwi) gave a statement denying responsibility on behalf of the Vanguards of Conquest. He got admonished by the unnamed but official spokesman for the Vanguards organization (Al-Sirri) — chastising him as not being authorized to speak for the organization (or even being a member).

On January 7, 1997 Col Muhammad Makkawi purporting to be speaking for the Egyptian Vanguards of Islamic Conquest denied responsibility for sending the letter bombs. He said: “Those are messages of admonishment. There is no flirtation between us and the Americans in order for us to send them such alarming messages in such a manner.” Makkawi said that “the Vanguards of Conquest “are heavyweight and would not embark on such childish actions.” US press and political commentaries had hinted at the Vanguards of Conquest organization’s involvement in these attempts. In his statement to `Al-Hayat, Makkawi added “I am surprised that we in particular, and not other parties, should be accused of such an operation.” (He perhaps would have been referring to the Egyptian Islamic Group).

But then someone else credited with being the Vanguards official spokesman denounced Makkawi’s authority to speak for the group, referring to the January 5th statement it had made denying responsibility. This other claimed spokesman said “We welcome any Muslim who wants to join us, and if Makkawi wants to [join us], he will be welcomed to the Vanguards march, but through the organizational channels. But if words are not coupled with actions, we tell him: Fear God, and you can use a different name other than the Vanguards to speak on its behalf.” The spokesman for the Vanguards of Conquest was Al-Sirri, who US Post Office worker Sattar would have upload a fatwa to kill jews that he wrote with the Islamic Group head Taha in September 2000. Sattar issued under Sheik’s Abdel-Rahman’s name, without him even knowing of it until after the fact.

The FBI would not speculate as to who sent the letters or why. But this was your classic “duck that walks like a duck” situation. As NPR reported at the time, “analysts say that letter bombs are rarely sent in batches, and when they are it’s generally prompted by politics, not personal animus.” Al Hayat was a well respected and moderate newspaper. It was friendly to moderate Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — just as, say NBC and CBS. That, without more, was accurately discerned by observers at the time as sufficient to make the newspaper outlet a target of the militant islamists. The newspaper, its editor explained, does not avoid criticizing militant islamists. The Al Hayat Editor-in-Chief explained: “We’ve been opposed to all extremists in the Arab world, especially the fundamentalists.” Mohammed Salameh, a central defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sent to Leavenworth in 1994. The other three Egyptian extremists convicted in the bombing were sent to prisons in California, Indiana and Colorado. Like the blind sheik, Abdel Rahman, Salameh had complained of his conditions and asked to be avenged. The Blind Sheik was particularly irked that the prison officials did not cut his fingernails. Adnan El-Shukrijumah, who I have urged was the anthrax mailer, was the son of the Blind Sheik.

Rahman was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, soliciting an attack on an U.S. military installation, and soliciting the murder of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. His followers were indicted for plotting to bomb bridges, tunnels and landmarks in New York for which Rahman allegedly had given his blessings. The mailing of deadly letters in connection with an earlier attack on the World Trade Center, was not merely the modus operandi of militant islamists, it was the group’s signature — it’s their calling card. Khaled Abu el-Dahab, a naturalised American, from Silicon Valley in a confession detailed in a state security document from Egypt’s defense ministry dated October 28, 1998, explained that he was trained to make booby-trapped letters to send to important people, as well as asked to enroll in American aviation schools to learn how to fly gliders and helicopters. He was a friend of Ali Mohammed, a former special forces officer in the Egyptian army and former US Army Sergeant. He ran the Blind Sheik’s Services Organization in Brooklyn. Islamic Group member Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin, headed the organization in Peshawar.

After the Al Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in DC and NYC and people in symbolic positions, in January 1997, both the Blind Sheikh and his paralegal, Sattar, were quoted in separate articles in Al Hayat (in Arabic) denying that they or their supporters were responsible. The Blind Sheikh commented that al Hayat was fair and balanced in its coverage and his supporters would have no reason to “hit” them. Sattar noted that the bombs were mailed on December 20, one day before the brief in support of the blind sheik on appeal. He questioned whether someone (like the FBI) was trying to undermine the appeal’s prospects. For its part, al Hayat reporters, editor and owner were not expressing an opinion — though the owner did lay out various possibilities (e.g., Iraq, Iran etc.). The owner of the paper had commanded Saudi forces during the Persian Gulf War, when Bin Laden was so upset about American troops on the Arabian peninsula. Moreover, al Hayat had recently opened up a Bureau in Jerusalem, giving it a dateline of Jerusalem rather than al Quds, which some thought blasphemous. But none of the possibilities would plausibly explain why the letter bomb was sent to Leavensworth where three of the WTC 1993 defendants were imprisoned, including Ramzi Yousef’s lieutenant who had asked that his mistreatment be avenged. (That was the criminal genius who returned to Ryder to reclaim his deposit after blowing up the truck at WTC). Egyptian security officials claimed that said that the letters were sent from outside of Egypt, the stamps were not available in Egypt, and that the postmark was not Alexandria as reported. Whatever the place of mailing, the sender likely was someone who was upset that KSM’s and Ramzi Yousef’s associates had been imprisoned, to include, most notably, the blind sheik. Whoever is responsible for the anthrax mailings, it is a very good bet that they are upset the blind sheik is detained. That should be at the center of any classified profile of the crime — starting of course with the son the of the blind sheik’s translator who the FBI knew was hanging around with lead 911 hijacker Mohammed Atta.

On December 31, 1996 Mohammed Youssef was in Egypt — having gone to Egypt months before. The al Hayat letter bombs related to the detention and alleged mistreatment of the blind sheikh and the WTC bombers were sent 10 days earlier — on the Day of Measures. In 2006, he was named as co-defendant with Hassoun, Daher, Padilla and Jayyousi. Youssef was born in Alexandria. Do authorities suspect the “Florida cell” of being involved in the al Hayat letter bombs? Until they didn’t get along, Padilla and El-Shukrijumah were slated to do an operation until they reportedly did not get along — Padilla was arrested when he came to the US. Kifah Jayyousi’s “Islam Report” over the years — distributed by Adham Hassoun in Florida and Kassem Daher in Canada — expressed outrage at detention/extradition due to terrorism law and also what he perceived as attacks on his religion by some newspapers. His headlines on the internet groups blazed “Just In! First Muslim Victim of New Terrorism Law!: US Agents Arrest Paralegal Of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman Without Charge Prepares To Hand Him To Egyptian Regime,” soc.religion.islam, dated April 27, 1996 and “Islam Report (Newspaper Attacks Our Religion! Act Now!,” soc.religion.islam, Apr. 16, 1996

In connection with the January 1997 letter bombs, Ayman allegedly got the know-how to send sophisticated electronic letter bombs from Iraqi intelligence according to one item from the highly controversial Feith memo. In the al Hayat letter bombings, Ayman allowed the finger to be pointed at Libya. In the Amerithrax letters, he allowed the finger to be pointed to a United States biodefense insider. Tenet in his May 2007 book included Saif Adel as among “al-Qa’da’s leadership to the group’s highly compartmentalized chemical, biological, and nuclear networks.”

In September 2006, in a Sahab Media production called “Knowledge is for acting,” there is a clip in which Al Quds editor Atwan refers to his visit with OBL in 1996 (see his 2006 book The Secret History of al Qaeda) and he says that Bin Laden was planning to attack America “and America prisons in particular.” That was an apparent reference to the Al Hayat letter bombs sent to newspapers and prisons in January 1997. There were recurrent references to Abdel-Rahman in the tape.

Given that the EIJ/Vanguards of Conquest people (such as Al-Sirri and Zawahiri) are working with the Egyptian Islamic Group leaders (such as Taha and Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin), it seems that Amerithrax can be thought of as a joint operation. After the merger between Al Qaeda and EIJ, and the joining of Al Qaeda by some of the Islamic Group leaders, the group responsible can be thought of as by the code name Zawahiri used — the Greendale School. He used “school” in May 2001 correspondence announcing to his followers the course he had embarked upon. Saif Adel had led the “Green Team” to Somalia organized by Atef.

DXersaid

When dealing with Ayman Zawahiri, it never pays to underestimate the importance to him in the 1990s of the terrorist infrastructure in Brooklyn. In the late 1990s, Steve Emerson traced the development of the “Mekhtab Al-Khidemat Al-Mujahideen,” or the “Office of Services of the Mujahideen,” from its formation in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1980′s to the Al Kifah Refugee Centers which spread throughout the United States and internationally. Zawahiri visited Brooklyn’s al Farouk mosque, which was part of Khidmat Services in Peshawar and was used to funnel jihadists and funds to Afghanistan. The blind sheik’s lawyer, Montasser al-Zayat, visited in 1990. Al-Zayat in 1999 said that Dr. Ayman Zawahiri planned on using anthrax to retaliate for the rendering of senior EIJ leaders (which most notably his client, Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman).

The CIA’s December 4, 1998 PDB to President Clinton explained that Mohammed Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin, was planning an attack using aircraft and other means on the United States. After Bojinka, which can be thought of as the origin for the 911 planning, Islambouli had been in a cell with KSM in planning the attacks. KSM came to be head of the cell planning to use weaponized anthrax on the United States. Therefore, it is important to understand who Islambouli knew and consider his historical connection to the al-Farook mosque in Brooklyn, New York.

Now the surest way to know who Islambouli knew would be to go back to the late 1970s leading up to Sadat’s assassination and study membership in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad cells at the universities. But the story also can fruitfully be picked up a decade later in the context of Islambouli’s ongoing connection to al-Farook in Brooklyn, NY. The Al-Kifah Refugee Center had found its home in the early 1990s at the Al-Farooq mosque on Atlantic Avenue. Some of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing worshipped at the mosque, as did the blind sheik’s bodyguard El-Sayyed Nosair, who killed the radical Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane.

The Brooklyn office of Makhtab Khidmat al-Mujahiden was staffed by Egyptian Islamic Jihad operative Khaled Dahab, a used car salesman from Santa Clara. Dahab handled the logistics for terrorists out of his home. He patched through calls for Egyptian Islamic Jihad members and transferred money. Ayman called Dahab periodically — once to price telephone surveillance equipment. Dahab at last report was in jail in Egypt. Dahab had been recruited by Ali Mohammed, the former US Army sergeant who was Bin Laden’s chief of security during the move from Afghanistan to Sudan. Ali Mohammed helped conduct the surveillance leading much later to the embassy bombings. He trained Dahab on how to make letter bombs.

When Ali Mohammed would visit Brooklyn, he would stay with a fellow Egyptian Nosair, who assassinated Meir Kahane. Nosair had been one of the men practicing with the men at the Calverton shooting range in Long Island under Mohammed’s instruction (along with some of the WTC 1993 bombers).

In 1992, Mohammed Islambouli, was in regular fax contact from his Peshawar Mujahedeen Office in Peshawar, Pakistan and the Brooklyn Al-Kifah office. One 1992 memo from Islambouli’s Peshawar office read: “The military wing of the Jihad seals its news with success everywhere. However, the matter is the hands of the leadership to form the Islamic government to manage the country.”

Sheik Abdel-Rahman would lecture regularly at al-Farook. He would visit Islambouli in Pakistan from Brooklyn in 1989 and during the early 1990s. It was not until April 1993, upon a crackdown on the foreign fighters, that Islambouli and Zawahiri had to move their operations into Afghanistan. Islambouli moved a scant 100 miles. Before disappearing into Afghanistan, Islambouli told the press the group would continue its holy war against the Egyptian government. In 1993, after he had to leave Peshawar, Islambouli lived at the Samarkhiel Guest House in Jalabad, a town in eastern Afghanistan three hours by road from the Pakistan border. In April 1993, a fax to Western news media threatened American interests if anything happened to Abdel-Rahman. At the time, Egyptian Islamic Group had about 200 members in Jalabad.

By 1995, Nosair was in prison and a defendant in a trial for sedition along with the Blind Sheik. The father of Adnan El-Shukrijumah (“Jafar the Pilot”) once translated for the Blind Sheik and was a character witness for Clement Rodney Hampton one of the defendants in the 1995 sedition trial. If the federal investigative interest over the years has been any indication, it appears that authorities perceived that a tree grew in Brooklyn.

DXersaid

About the time the FBI was discovering the first bag of semen-stained panties that Bruce Ivins had put out to the garbage, I was explaining how Hawsawi’s laptop could be understood as a key to solving the Amerithrax mystery.
Adnan El-Shukrijumah had joined up with Hawsawi in Karachi for the February 2002- April 2002 period. There is every reason to think Hawsawi had the laptop at the time.

Hawsawi worked under KSM who in turn worked for Zawahiri. Al-Hawsawi was a facilitator for the 9/11 attacks and its paymaster, working from the United Arab Emirates, sending thousands to Bin Al-Shibh in the summer of 2001. After 9/11, he returned to Afghanistan where he met separately with Bin Laden, Zawahiri and spokesman Abu Ghaith. KSM worked closely with al-Hawsawi and it would make perfect sense that the computer is actually al-Hawsawi’s. The fact that the anthrax spray drying documents were on that computer, however, and that he had worked under for Al Sahab in Kandahar in 2000, serves to suggest that the undated documents predated 9/11, particularly given that extremely virulent anthrax was later found in Kandahar. At the same time, it suggests that Al-Hawsawi has personal knowledge relevant to anthrax.

Hawsawi worked as a financial manager for Bin Laden when he was in Sudan. He was associated with Mahjoub, who was Bin Laden’s farm manager in Sudan. Mahjoub was the subject of the anthrax threat in January 2001 in Canada, upon announcement of his bail hearing. The day after Mahjoub’s bail was denied on October 5, 2001, the potent stuff was sent to US Senators Daschle and Leahy.

The Washington Post explained that “What the documents and debriefings show, the first official said, is that “KSM was involved in anthrax production, and [knew] quite a bit about it.” Al Qaeda had recruited competent scientists, including a Pakistani microbiologist who the officials declined to name. “The documents describe specific timelines for producing biochemical weapons and include a bar graph depicting the parallel processes that must take place between Days 1 and 31 of manufacture. Included are inventories of equipment and indications of readiness to grow seed stocks of pathogen in nutrient baths and then dry the resulting liquid slurry into a form suitable for aerosol dispersal.” The Washington Post story notes that U.S. officials said the evidence does not indicate whether al Qaeda completed manufacture. The documents are undated and unsigned and cryptic about essential details.

The unclassified memo below lists some of the contents of the computer that had the anthrax spraydrying docs.

In addition to establishing him as paymaster for the hijackers, Al-Hawsawi’s computer disks reportedly also included lists of contributors worldwide, to include bank account numbers and names of organizations that have helped finance terror attacks. In press accounts, one unnamed government official confirmed that the information has yielded the identities of about a dozen suspected terrorists in the US. Thus, when former CIA Director Tenet says the anthrax planning was done in parallel in 9/11 and compartmentalization was done at the highest levels of Al Qaeda, Hawsawi’s laptop may be a graphic illustration.

In his substituted testimony in the Moussaoui case, Al-Hawsawi says he became part of Al Qaeda’s media committee in Afghanistan in about July 2000, and KSM joined the committee in February 2001. Hawsawi lived at the media office. For about 4-5 months in 2000, Hawsawi worked as a secretary on al Qaeda’s media committee. Hawsawi’s role “was to copy compact discs and reprint articles for the brothers at the guesthouse in Qandahar. After 2000, Hawsawi worked at the direction of Sheikh Mohammed, transferring funds, and procuring goods.”

The first time that Hawsawi was asked to be come involved in operational activities was about March 2001, when he took his second trip to the UAE. Although Sheikh Mohammed did not use the word ‘operation,’ Sheikh Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be purchasing items, receiving and possibly sending money, and possibly meeting individuals whom Hawsawi would contact or who would contact him. Sheikh Mohammed also told Hawsawi that his stay would be lengthy, so he should rent an apartment. Sheikh Mohammed said Hawsawi did not need cover because he was carrying a Saudi passport, and it was a common practice for a Saudi to rent an apartment in the UAE. In approximately August 2001, Hawsawi, with Sheikh Mohammed’s blessing, decided to take an English course.

Sheik Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be in contact with individuals called ‘Abd Al-Rahman (Muhammad Atta) and the “Doctor” (Nawaf al-Hazmi). Atta called Hawsawi four times while in the US. Hawsawi says he was never in contact with Hani or Nawaf while in the US. On September 9, Ramzi bin Shibh told the date of the planned operation and urged that he return to Pakistan. He flew out on 9/11 and after a night in Karachi, flew on to Quetta.

Hawsawi stated repeatedly that he never conducted any activity of any type with or on behalf of Moussaoui and had no knowledge of who made Moussaoui’s travel arrangements. Documents, however, reportedly show that al-Hawsawi worked with the Dublin cell to finance Moussaoui’s international travel. Hamid Aich was an EIJ operative there who once had lived with Ressam, the so-called millennium bomber, in Canada.

The indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui named al-Hawsawi as an unindicted co-conspirator. Moussaou had tried to call KSM and Hawsawi as witnessses. That indictment reported that al-Hawsawi was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 5, 1968. Hawsawi had left Kandahar for Dubai by late June 2001. The Zacarias indictment alleges that on September 11, 2001, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi then left the UAE for Pakistan.

Hawsawi has said that it was Qahtani who was to have been “the 20th hijacker” rather than Moussaoui. (Qahtani, you may recall, was Al-Marri’s relative; Al-Marri was the biochem operative that KSM sent to the US on September 10, 2001.) Qahtani, Hawsawi said, had trained extensively to be one of the “muscle hijackers.” Of Moussaoui, al-Hawsawi said he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, sometime in the first half of 2001, but was not introduced to him and had not conducted any operations with him. At Moussaoui’s trial, the government pointed to FAA intelligence reports from the late 1990s and 2000 that noted that a hijacked airliner could be flown into a building or national landmark in the U.S., but viewed that scenario “as an option of last resort” given the motive of the attack was to free blind sheik Abdel Rahman. Flying a plane into a building would afford little time to negotiate.

Zacarias Moussaou reportedly was in Karachi with my former Facebook Friend, anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat, on February 3, 2001 when they bought air tickets through a local travel agency for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They reportedly left on a flight for KL on February 8, 2001. Moussaoui began at the Norman, Oklahoma flight school on February 26, 2001. KSM says that Moussaoui’s inquiries about cropdusters may have related to Hambali and Sufaat’s work with anthrax.

Another reason not to underestimate Hawsawi’s possible role in an anthrax operation is his contact with al-Marri. Al-Marri, who entered the country on September 10, 2001, was researching chemicals in connection with a “second wave.” Al-Marri was also drafting emails to KSM. Although al-Marri denies being in contact with Hawsawi, phone records show otherwise. Email evidence also confirms messages drafted by al-Marri to KSM. The fascinating and groundbreaking article by Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post on al-Marri notes that al-Marri picked up $13,000 in cash from al-Hawsawi. Al-Marri made the mistake of opening the briefcase containing the money in bundles and peeling off a few hundred dollars to pay his bail after being stopped on a traffic charge a couple days after 9/11. ***

DXersaid

In Spring 2001, El-Shukrijumah joined Dhiren Barot and another biochem operative, Al-Marri working with KSM and Hawsawi, in casing NYC and DC targets. (Barot came back with an absurd number of CDs containing recon of numerous targets).

Newsweek provided background on Dhiren Barot and his connection to Hambali and his trip to Kuala Lumpur at the time of the summit at Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat’s condo.

Aug. 17 – The suspect at the center of new terror charges filed today in Great Britain once traveled with Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard to Malaysia at the time of a crucial Al Qaeda summit where U.S. intelligence officials believe the September 11 attacks were planned, NEWSWEEK has learned.
…

But if Barot’s name was not public until today, his existence and his connections to the highest level of Al Qaeda have been known to U.S. authorities for some time, according to documents and officials interviewed by NEWSWEEK.

In the recently published report by the September 11 commission, Barot is identified under another name—Issa al-Britani, a veteran Al Qaeda operative who was dispatched by September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to case economic and “Jewish” targets in New York City in early 2001.

Even more intriguing, Barot, as al-Britani, is mentioned in an obscure footnote elsewhere in the report as having been dispatched by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in late 1999 or early 2000 to meet with Hambali, the notorious Asian terrorist who heads Jemaah Islamiah, an Al Qaeda affiliate dedicated to overthrowing the governments of Southeast Asia and replacing them with a pan-Islamic state.

The footnote in the report states that al-Britani provided Hambali with two addresses—one in the United States, “possibly in California,” and another in South Africa—and told the Asian terrorist that he could “contact people in those locations” if he “needed help.”

The report does not elaborate on this pass-along and notes that Hambali, who is now in U.S. custody, denies to interrogators that he ever gave these addresses to any of his confederates. But U.S. officials are dubious about Hambali’s denials and suspect that the unspecified U.S. address in California may well have been passed along to two of the future September 11 hijackers—Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.

According to a U.S. intelligence official who has studied debriefing reports on these matters, Barot or al-Britani appears to have traveled to Kuala Lumpur around January 2000 with notorious Al Qaeda operative Tawfiq bin Attash, otherwise known as “Khallad,” a fierce one-legged former Afghan fighter who served as bin Laden’s bodyguard. Khallad, a Yemeni native, is also believed by U.S. officials to be a prime architect of the bombing of the naval warship USS Cole, off the coast of Yemen in October 2000. Khalad was arrested last year in Pakistan.

Although it goes unmentioned in the report, Barot’s trip to Malaysia comes at a critical time: just days before the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur summit where early plans for the September 11 attacks were discussed under the watchful eye of Malaysian Special Branch officials working closely with the CIA. Although CIA and Malaysian authorities were clueless at the time about the purpose of the meeting, they were later aghast to discover that two of the future hijackers, Almihdhar and Alhazmi, were present. After the summit, the two then traveled, with a short stop in Bangkok, to the United States and established a base in Southern California.

U.S. officials do not believe that Barot was actually present at the summit. But his presence in Kuala Lumpur just days before and his associations with Hambali and Khallad, as well as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed make it clear that he has been in the inner circle of the Al Qaeda planning structure for years.

That apparent role injects added significance to the charges filed in London today, suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning a mass terror attack using chemical and even radioactive weapons as recently as the past few weeks.

According to U.S. and British officials, Barot and other suspects arrested in Britain were in active touch with Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan who in turn appear to have been communicating with bin Laden and his closest associates hiding on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

DXersaid

1. Who also stayed in KSM’s house in Kandahar — like Adnan El-Shukrijumah? Yazid Sufaat, Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab director who, along with his assistants, was vaccinated for work with virulent anthrax. Kandahar was where the anthrax lab was located.

2. Where did Adnan El-Shukrijumah case targets in 2001 on KSM’s direction? New York and DC.

3. Where did Adnan El-Shukrijumah stay while casing the targets in New York? New Jersey. He stayed with Al-Hindi’s relative.

4. On a second trip with another alleged conspirator in March 2001, Barot told his aunt he was planning to visit California and meet a group of girls. Instead, Barot went to Washington and also took a helicopter trip across Manhattan.

He is learnt to have stayed for two months with his cousin Meeta (Sudhaben’s daughter) and her husband in New Jersey— who had no clue to his activities. Sources said when Meeta’s father visited her after post 9/11, the US police grilled him as Barot’s cover had blown by then.

5. Why was he able to travel undetected? He had numerous passports and officials explain that his looks made him difficult to peg as a particular nationality.

El Shukrijumah carries a Guyanan passport and, authorities said, could attempt to enter the United States with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidad and Tobago passport using a half-dozen aliases. He is described as about 5-foot-4, weighing 130 pounds, with black hair, black eyes and possibly wearing a beard. He reportedly moved to Morocco in 2001.
His role with al Qaeda has been compared by authorities with that of Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 19 hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks.

The FBI continued its global manhunt yesterday for suspected terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, focusing in part on South Florida, where bureau officials met this week with members of the Arab-American community to seek assistance in the search.

El Shukrijumah, 27, is the target of a worldwide alert issued last week by the FBI, who said the Saudi national posed a serious threat to the United States and could be plotting new suicide attacks against targets here and abroad. He was last seen in late 2001 in the Miami area.

“El Shukrijumah, 27, is the target of a worldwide alert issued last week by the FBI, who said the Saudi national posed a serious threat to the United States and could be plotting new suicide attacks against targets here and abroad. He was last seen in late 2001 in the Miami area.

“He has been identified by senior members of the al Qaeda organization as a very, very, very serious threat to the United States interests, both here and abroad. I can’t go beyond that,” said FBI Agent Hector Pesquera, who heads the bureau’s Miami field office.

Members of the Arab-American community who met with the FBI in Miramar, Fla., where El Shukrijumah’s father lives, said they told federal authorities they would do what they could to assist the FBI in locating the suspected terrorist.

“Law enforcement thinks this is urgent, and we respect them as professionals and we have pledged our support to them,” said Parvez Ahmed, the Florida chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

..Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reportedly told authorities that El Shukrijumah was dispatched to the United States to carry out an operation ”

DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2013

7. Is there any evidence in the thousands of detainee interrogations — after announcing his intention to his mom upon 9/11 that he was coming to the US — that he did not come? … that he was he was still in Afghanistan at the time of the anthrax mailings? No.

8. What did Yazid Sufaat load anthrax into? Yazid Sufaat tells me that he pleads the Fifth Amendment as to the antharx mailings. His next court date is July 22, 2014.

DXersaid

1. Who also stayed in KSM’s house in Kandahar — like Adnan El-Shukrijumah? Yazid Sufaat, Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab director who, along with his assistants, was vaccinated for work with virulent anthrax. Kandahar was where the anthrax lab was located.

1 a. People who argue Yazid Sufaat were not working with virulent anthrax from June 2001 through September 2001 may not understand that one does not need to be vaccinated unless one is working with virulent anthrax. The DNA revealed it to be Ames that he was working with. See Relman, Science. Nonscientists seem not to understand that dna can be identified even when there is no longer any viable pathogen. See Byrne deposition that I’ve uploaded.

2. Where did Adnan El-Shukrijumah case targets in 2001 on KSM’s direction? New York and DC.

2 a. Adnan and his colleagues also cased targets in New Jersey. The FBI has said his casing, which included the casing of NYC helicopters, appears to have related in part to the use biochemical weapons.

3. Where did Adnan El-Shukrijumah stay while casing the targets in New York? New Jersey. He stayed with Al-Hindi’s relative.

3 b. The article below says he stayed with his cousin Meeta and identifies Meeta’s mom. Ancestry.com is a wonderful tool. But since I lost my internet connection after the last post I’ll go slow. The FBI openly questioned Meeta and her husband only when Meeta’s father came to the US and spilled the beans about inquiries in India. (I recently won second and third place in a book cover design contest involving a great novel about the immigrant experience coming from India; the immigrant experience is a rich subject for a novel.)

4. On a second trip with another alleged conspirator in March 2001, Barot told his relative he was planning to visit California and meet a group of girls. Instead, Barot went to Washington and also took a helicopter trip across Manhattan.

He is learnt to have stayed for two months with his cousin Meeta (Sudhaben’s daughter) and her husband in New Jersey— who had no clue to his activities. Sources said when Meeta’s father visited her after post 9/11, the US police grilled him as Barot’s cover had blown by then.

5. Why was he able to travel undetected? He had numerous passports and officials explain that his looks made him difficult to peg as a particular nationality.

El Shukrijumah carries a Guyanan passport and, authorities said, could attempt to enter the United States with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidad and Tobago passport using a half-dozen aliases. He is described as about 5-foot-4, weighing 130 pounds, with black hair, black eyes and possibly wearing a beard. He reportedly moved to Morocco in 2001.
His role with al Qaeda has been compared by authorities with that of Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 19 hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks.

5 a. It is believe that Shukrijumah visited the US several times since 9/11 and is closely associated with Trinidad, Florida and New York City.

5 b. Another biochem operative sent by KSM, Al-Marri, entered the country via New York on September 10, 2001. He was in touch with KSM by email and Al-Hawsawi by telephone. (Al-Hawsawi had the anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop). Authorities focused on Al-Marri when the intended hijacker sent by KSM, Qahtani, disclosed he was a relative. Qahtani reported that he was at the 911 planning meeting held at the Kuala Lumpur condo of my former Facebook Friend Yazid Sufaat. Yazid Sufaat was living with KSM for a period — what did he and Shukrijumah discuss before Shukrijumah left to come to the US, following shortly behind Al-Marri?

The FBI continued its global manhunt yesterday for suspected terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, focusing in part on South Florida, where bureau officials met this week with members of the Arab-American community to seek assistance in the search.

El Shukrijumah, 27, is the target of a worldwide alert issued last week by the FBI, who said the Saudi national posed a serious threat to the United States and could be plotting new suicide attacks against targets here and abroad. He was last seen in late 2001 in the Miami area.

“El Shukrijumah, 27, is the target of a worldwide alert issued last week by the FBI, who said the Saudi national posed a serious threat to the United States and could be plotting new suicide attacks against targets here and abroad. He was last seen in late 2001 in the Miami area.

“He has been identified by senior members of the al Qaeda organization as a very, very, very serious threat to the United States interests, both here and abroad. I can’t go beyond that,” said FBI Agent Hector Pesquera, who heads the bureau’s Miami field office.

Members of the Arab-American community who met with the FBI in Miramar, Fla., where El Shukrijumah’s father lives, said they told federal authorities they would do what they could to assist the FBI in locating the suspected terrorist.

“Law enforcement thinks this is urgent, and we respect them as professionals and we have pledged our support to them,” said Parvez Ahmed, the Florida chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

..Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reportedly told authorities that El Shukrijumah was dispatched to the United States to carry out an operation ”

DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2013

7. Is there any evidence in the thousands of detainee interrogations — after announcing his intention to his mom upon 9/11 that he was coming to the US — that he did not come? … that he was he was still in Afghanistan at the time of the anthrax mailings? No.

7a. I’ve lost my usual internet connection and from this computer it is not convenient to check and link supplemental sources. But as I recall, by March 2002, El-Shukrijumah was back in Karachi living with Hawsawi who had the anthrax spraydrying documents on his computer.

8. What did Yazid Sufaat load anthrax into? Yazid Sufaat tells me that he pleads the Fifth Amendment as to the anthrax mailings. His next court date is July 22, 2014.

DXersaid

But it’s not like the FBI Agents spend all their time rummaging around for a man’s semen-stained panties so that the prosecutor then can threaten to call his family in front of a grand jury to ask about problems at home.– and then close the case and declare victory upon his suicide.

A Mystery Man Who Keeps the FBI Up at Night

FIVE YEARS AFTER

Officials hunting virtually full time for a Florida computer technician see him as the ultimate `sleeper agent’ in the post-9/11 world.

September 03, 2006|Josh Meyer | Times Staff Writer

In March 2004, after a year of inconclusive leads, the FBI got wind of a Shukrijumah sighting. Intelligence had placed him at a summit of the so-called second-generation Al Qaeda leaders in the rugged mountains of Waziristan, an area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border where much of the Al Qaeda brain trust — including Osama bin Laden — was believed to be hiding.

Working together, authorities in Pakistan, Britain and the United States arrested some of the attendees and seized several computers.

The evidence indicated the attendees were discussing future terrorist operations in Europe and the U.S. At least one had compiled video footage of the New York Stock Exchange, a Newark, N.J., insurance building and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings in Washington.

On May 26, 2004, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft went public again, singling out Shukrijumah as the most dangerous of seven Al Qaeda operatives suspected of planning strikes in the U.S.

Citing “credible intelligence from multiple sources,” Ashcroft described Shukrijumah as “a clear and present danger” who might be trying to enter the country.

More tips and rumors continued to pour in. Most were maddeningly vague. They persisted through the elections in November, but nothing ever happened.

Then Shukrijumah appeared to drop off the radar screen again. There hasn’t been a publicly disclosed sighting since.

Nearly two years later, senior FBI and intelligence officials say they still debate where Shukrijumah might be. Their best guess is that he remains in Waziristan.

In July, the U.S. government, which is offering a $5-million reward, began handing out fancy green matchboxes in Pakistan bearing a photograph of Shukrijumah.

“You give us Adnan G. el Shukrijumah and in return we will give you rewards,” the boxes say in Urdu and Pashto. “We assure you that all information would be kept secret.”

Meanwhile, Shukrijumah continues to cause many a sleepless night.

Special Agent Andrew Lenzen, the lead case agent and a veteran of the FBI’s Miami counter-terrorism squad, has amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of Shukrijumah’s actions and personality quirks. He has even compiled a timeline of his life, beginning with the day he was born.

“I know him almost like his mother,” said Lenzen. “I’ve lived, slept and dreamed him for the past three years.”

DXersaid

An associate of my mailing candidate, Adnan El-Shukrijumah, is Jdey. The thoughtful history PhD Ken Dillon, with formal experience as an intelligence analyst, favors Jdey as the mailer. Jdey disappeared from Montreal at the time of the mailings and had been part of the 911 Planes Operation. Connected to KSM and Hambali and others, Jdey had pulled out of participation in the Planes Operation for reasons other than “cold feet.”

The head CIA analyst has publicly reported in a WMD by Harvard that Jdey was detained at the same time as Moussaoui and released. So my friend Ken’s FOIA lawsuit was intended to obtain records relating to the former CIA top dog’s public disclosure.

All documents relating to Jdey, however, have been withheld pursuant to FOIA Exemption 7(A). So I don’t expect squat to be produced about Jdey’s associate El-Shukrijumah despite the excitement of the media plaintiffs in Florida.

In the case Kenneth J. Dillon v. FBI case, the DECLARATION OF DAVID M. HARDY is 95 pages long. It provides an explanation known as a Vaughn Index describing the justifications for the FBI’s withholding of information pursuant to various FOIA exemptions. Mr. Hardy serves 260 employees who staff 10 FBIHQ units and two field operational service center units.

He explains that Plaintiff requested a fee waiver stating that as a scholar and publisher, he is “serving the public’s need for better information about this important and controversial case.” Lastly, plaintiff asked for expedited processing because

“there is an urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged federal government activity. Specifically, the FBI appears to have withheld critical information from the court and the American people about the crop dusting information (suggestive of intended bioterrorism) and about Abderrauf Jdey, a leading suspect in the Amerithrax case.”

The FBI initially denied the request on the grounds of Jdey’s privacy rights. The FBI found that Jdey would have to sign a release form authorizing the release.

On administrative appeal, the FBI was asked to reconsider the denial on the grounds that Jdey was on the FBI’s wanted list.

On remand, the FBI denied the request on the grounds that Jdey is the subject of a pending law enforcement file and the release of any records can reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.

At page 8, Attorney Hardy further explains that

“[Jdey] traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 and received combat training with the Taliban government. Jdey has direct ties with many known and suspected terrorists who are the subject of various pending FBI investigations and prosecutions. He is suspected of plotting terrorist attacks against the United States. A suicide letter authored by Jdey detailing his intention to become a marty for jihad and martyrdom video were recovered from the house of a known al-Qaeda leader back in 2001. Jdey has direct connections with high-ranking terrorism. He has consorted with terrorists over the past decade and is wanted for questioning in connection with terrorist threat made against the United States. Therefore, the investigation on Aberrauf Jdey is active and ongoing.”

Turning to the Moussaoui request, the Attorney Hardy described the search conducted included:

“The FBI took the extraordinary step of conduct a text search in CRS using the terms, “Moussaoui AND Pesticide,” Moussaoui AND Chemical Terrorism,” “Moussaoui AND Biological Terrorism,” “Mossaoui AND Cropdusting,” and Moussaoui AND Cropdusters.”

The FBI also ocntacted a Special Agent familiar with the Moussaoui case who investigated documents responsive to Plaintiff’s request. The FBI processed those and records and released non-exempt material to plaintiff on August 26, 2013.

Returning to Jdey, Dave Hardy notes:

“The investigation of Jdey is ongoing and will remain so until he is located and any proceedings brought against him or his associates are concluded.”

“The FBI has determined that all responsive records, whether in the main file or as a cross reference, are part of various ongoing national security investigations and are exempt from disclosure pursuant to FOIA Examption 7(A).

A federal judge has approved requests by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Miami Herald to join in a Freedom-of-Information lawsuit seeking to force the FBI to disclose details of its long-running Sarasota 9/11 investigation.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, Judge William J. Zloch gave friend-of-the-court status to the news organizations, allowing them to add their voices in the suit, initiated by an independent news organization based in Fort Lauderdale, The Broward Bulldog Inc.

“We see that as a good thing, recognizing the public importance of the documents that are being sought,” said the Broward Bulldog’s attorney, Thomas R. Julin.

According to Hammoud, al-Hijji’s acquaintances included Adnan El Shukrijumah, who in 2010 was federally indicted for his alleged role in a terrorist plot to attack New York City’s subway system. The FBI offered a reward of up to

$5 million for information leading to El Shukrijumah’s capture, and listed him as one of the “most-wanted terrorists.”

Hammoud told investigators that El Shukrijumah and al-Hijjii showed up together at informal soccer games on property surrounding a Sarasota mosque. Sukrijumah is from the east coast of Florida.

In an interview with the London Telegraph in February 2012, al-Hijjii emphatically denied any connection to hijackers, stating that he loved America.

Al-Hijjii acknowledged knowing Hammoud, but said Shukrijumah’s name did not ring a bell.